Trotsky--a ‘Traitor’ Redeemed : Soviet Union: At last, history’s due is given to Stalin’s nemesis, a non-person for 60 years.

Glasnost has returned to the Soviet people a number of names that were thought to have been lost forever. One is Lev Trotsky (known in the West as Leon, born Levi Davidovish Bronstein), who for years was public enemy No. 1, a “spy,” “traitor” and “counterrevolutionary.” However, the truth will out in the end.

There’s no denying that Trotsky was a complex personality. A balance has to be maintained to enable us to dig down to the truth.

I decided to write a book on Trotsky because I am convinced that we should evaluate him not through rumors and allegations but in the light of hard facts. In the Soviet Union we are now delving deep into our own history, not out of idle curiosity but from a true desire to weigh our past and sift the good and the bad. Trotsky, despite all his contradictions and mistakes, is one of the towering figures of our history--a confidant of Lenin, one of the main architects of the Soviet state. The least he deserves is an honest and unbiased appraisal of his life.

Trotsky joined the social-democratic movement in 1898. He suffered several arrests, was exiled in Siberia and escaped abroad to visit other countries, among them the United States.

At the 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic and Workers’ Party (Bolsheviks), which met semi-legally in July and August of 1917, he was elected to the Central Committee. That October, he was in the thick of the revolution as chairman of the Petrograd Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet and soon became chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. Although he had never served in the Army or Navy, it is to him that the credit for turning the Red Army into a formidable fighting force must go.

His appearance at any army unit was unfailingly accompanied by lively rallies and debates. A brilliant speaker, Trotsky would psych up the soldiers for battle, generously distributing awards to the deserving and dealing savagely with those at fault. Commissars, commanders and soldiers who deserted their posts or displayed faint-heartedness were shot on his orders.

He swept from one front to the next in his armored train and gained for himself such authority that when he resigned in a fit of pique in July, 1919, the leadership headed by Lenin categorically refused to let him go. Lenin had a high opinion of Trotsky’s administrative skills, toughness and singlemindedness in carrying through party decisions.

At the same time, Trotsky’s uneven nature, arrogance and inability to make even the slightest compromise gradually set the Leninist old guard and younger members of the party against him. This may sound strange, but it was Trotsky himself who strengthened Josef Stalin’s hand in the power struggle following Lenin’s death. An indefatigable source of intrigue, discussion and investigation, Trotsky’s appeal faded in comparison to the calm and patience of Stalin.

Although Trotsky was one of the most-admired people of his time, he actually had very few supporters. This was evident during voting at congresses or party debates. Although many in the party appreciated Trotsky’s intellect, public-speaking skills and ability to organize, they could never forgive him for condescending to his associates. On more than one occasion he openly referred to Lenin collaborator Grigori Zinoviev and Stalin as “mediocrities” and “myopic”--hardly the way to win them over.

Stalin, on the other hand, did everything to identify himself with the ordinary people. Despite being far less educated and cultured than Trotsky, he gained increasing support at the top of the party and in the end seized the leadership for himself. Stalin was fully aware of Trotsky’s strengths, seeing him as not just an opponent but a deadly enemy. He consequently did everything he could to remove him from the scene.

Much more of Trotsky’s energy was directed toward subverting and destroying the old than to creating the new. He believed in the permanent revolution, and during the Revolutionary war was absolutely serious when he suggested setting up two or three cavalry regiments in the southern Urals and sending them to India and China to stimulate the process of revolution there. He also proposed marching on Warsaw, to “rekindle the flickering flames” of the revolution in Europe.

In January, 1928, Stalin, the “leader of the peoples,” had his way: Trotsky was disgraced and internally exiled to Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, as an “enemy of the revolution.” Refusing to submit to the secret police sent to collect him, he had to be manhandled out of his home. Final victory temporarily eluded Stalin--in 1928 Trotsky still wielded enormous authority and promptly gathered supporters around him in Alma-Ata. Stalin feared to have him shot or put on trial, but he did manage to get him deported. In February, 1929, Trotsky, his wife, Natalya Sedova, and eldest son, Lev, were put aboard a ferry in Odessa for Constantinople. Ahead lay exile on a Turkish island earlier used by Byzantium for out-of-favor feudal lords.

Even as an emigre, Trotsky continued to harry Stalin, firing withering criticism in endless interviews and hinting about his support in the Red Army. Stalin repaid this hatred in kind. Trotsky came under constant surveillance by secret police agents and informers. Having resolved to eliminate Trotsky, Stalin chased him virtually around the world, from Turkey to France to Norway and, finally, to Mexico. However, there were only two clear attempts on his life, both in Mexico. The first took place in May, 1940, and though the armed attack on his house failed, Trotsky later wrote in his diary that he felt he was under sentence of death but did not know when it would be carried out.

The man who organized the second--and successful--attempt later the same year died only last year in the Soviet Union. Others who were directly involved are still alive.

Right up to his death, Trotsky lived in expectation that the inevitable flames of worldwide revolution would engulf the world, yet he had a very vague concept of socialism. The peasantry Trotsky regarded as “revolution fodder,” an amorphous mass whose only worth was to help the proletariat build socialism. He also supported maximum centralization of power and believed the use of terror to be justified; in this sense, perhaps the greatest Trotskyite of all was Stalin.